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“Passion, it lies in all of us, sleeping… waiting… and though unwanted… unbidden… it will stir… open its jaws and howl. It speaks to us… guides us… passion rules us all, and we obey. What other choice do we have? Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love… the clarity of hatred… and the ecstasy of grief. It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion maybe we'd know some kind of peace… but we would be hollow… Empty rooms shuttered and dank. Without passion we'd be truly dead.”

"Almost to a man these dead geniuses spoke of themselves as heavy drinkers, as did I. Masterful, self-controlled, heavy drinkers. Not drunks, my God, no. At worst, and to make one’s self-image truly and formally clear, the term might be ‘functional alcoholic.’ But even that terrible label has a soulful thrust to it, as if this drunk is completely in focus! If I can still think—just think—then I’m half-way sober and can catch those fleeting ingenuities that otherwise get by me . . . I too am an alcoholic and once sat with my number one, el supremo smile before my typewriter, toppling in place over my copy, a farsighted blur pasted to my eyeballs. I patiently uncurled the English tongue to make it speak plain but it kept tying itself into gorgeous knots I couldn’t make sense of. And if the knot had a hard glow, like sunlight on snow, then I didn’t care about sense. This light overrode sense, or the need for it. Light is all. This, I’d assure myself with a thankful glance toward heaven, this is the best prose I’ve ever written." — Donald Newlove, Those Drinking Days: Myself and Other Writers

people ask for criticism, but they only want praise— w. somerset maugham (1874 – 1965)

those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities— voltaire (1694 – 1778)

he had forgotten that all life is only a set of pictures in the brain, among which there is no difference betwixt those born of real things and those born of inward dreamings, and no cause to value the one above the other— h.p. lovecraft, the silver key, 1926

absence weakens mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind blows out candles and kindles fires— françois de la rochefoucauld

be vulnerable, only the dead are not— anonymous

i don't need a friend who changes when i change and who nods when i nod; my shadow does that much better— plutarch

the worst problem with an open mind is that people throw garbage into it— anonymous

If I lose the light of the sun, I will write by candlelight, moonlight, no light. If I lose paper and ink, I will write in blood on forgotten walls. I will write always. I will capture nights all over the world and bring them to you.